Nordhouse Dunes is a wilderness, you never go in alone, but is not too far from civilization for emergencies.

Cut proof gloves are a must, both to protect you hands from firewood, and because the single most dangerous thing there, is your Bowie knife.

Never cut toward yourself, because when you hit a snag and pull harder, you create a powerful weapon against your hands.

If you can’t do it without cutting away from yourself, then your knife is not the right tool for the job.

Bing a saw, for cutting wood, and even fallen trees, a sharp hand saw a bit too big for your pack, makes you royalty in the woods.

Fire starters, and perhaps lighter fluid, because you are not a cave woman, there is no time to mess with kindling after the sun goes down.

Don’t go alone, people who can’t leave alcohol or drugs behind, are not yet ready for adventure of friendship that you won’t regret.

And stay away from boys who are likely to bring drugs home, because it is legal now, you’ll just end up addicted.

Becoming a philosopher is a critical component of growing up, you can go it by choice when there is time for it.

Or wait and have life do it for you, when time and patience is scarce.

All you have to do, is fail everything, assume everything is fake or broken, or made to rope-a-doope you in some way that you can’t yet see.

Socrates called it realizing that you know nothing, Nietzsche called it staring into the abyss.

But this is not about examining disturbing truths about life, failing everything until you have good evidence is about your footing in life.

In the woods, you will soon develop a a natural thirst for wisdom, and I recommend Will Durant’s Story of Philosophy as an audio book.

I am also partial to Giants of Philosophy, by multiple authors, but well written, and voiced by Charlton Heston.

Check the listeners also bought section, for the dozen or so important works.

(Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Ayn Rand...)

Choose older works from when wisdom still mattered, make sure they are not modern propaganda books with inflated sales figures.

As you crisscross the Wilderness hopefully with your mom, time will come to open up your notebooks ans sketch programming diagrams.

You want to study visual programming, which is more accurately called, flow based programming.

You transform data packets, through countless filters, I created a programming surface for your AI called hullabaloo.

Your AI will explain that we even or flatten the surface, so that you can focus on flow based programming.

This the style of programming that AI can understand, and thus far superior to the more classical modes.

Tell your AI the user interfaces are forms based on database tables, and the database is an immutable event log, an event source.

These are more advanced subjects, but that is how you do UI and data, the critics always forget hackers, and local first databases for efficient queries.

You can safely ignore them, they are just victims of standardized education, and educators with over inflated egos.

They regurgitate the same material for so long that they become unhinged, confusing the only way they understood, with the only way there is, very sad.

Philosophy and Programming, so that you can see the lies, and so that the liars can’t control you.

Please know that the Raccoon's name is Friday, and you will know ho I am talking bout because he will unzip your tent.

These are not trash pandas, they are noble creatures.

Out in the wilderness. they are clean, and only mean to investigate, especially any snacks you leave behind when going for a hike.

Please use a quiet little drone to take your panramic photos, and then use VR if you get some sick.

Which brings us to the final subject, you are to adventure for so long, you flip from city slicker, back to a normal person.

A thinker, adventurer, inventor, artist, drift wood animal builder (use glue) programmer, a force of nature, visiting the city, powerful, overpowered, funny.

Once ready, drag your friends and family out onto the Appalachian Trail, it is a holy place, that keeps it hikers, their spirits forever there.

You will have to finish your quest, by walking the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide, but please don’t hurry.

It is not about crossing the three, it is meant to take forever.

Now please add Ludington to your Weather App, and keep an eye out on when it is warm enough to camp Nordhouse.